


Though This Be the Last Pain

by cricket_aria



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: A learns to accept B won't return their feelings, A thinks B sees them as family, F/M, Growing Up, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 10:35:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/pseuds/cricket_aria
Summary: Mabel was almost four when her mother explained that getting married meant finding someone that you wanted to be with forever, and she knew that she didn't need to find anyone. She'd been born right beside a person she always wanted to be with.





	Though This Be the Last Pain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoseWithAllHerThorns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseWithAllHerThorns/gifts).

“I’m gonna marry Mason when I grow up!”

She was almost four the first time she said it. They were on their way to a cousin's wedding, and their mom had just finished explaining what that meant; that she had found someone she loved so much that she wanted to stay with them forever and ever. To Mabel it was obvious she’d already found the same thing herself. She’d been born right beside him.

“And I’m gonna marry Mabel!” he chimed right in beside her, linking their elbows together.

She’d always remember that when she was older. There was a time when he’d thought it too.

* * *

She was six when her grandmother stopped her during a visit and said “Look how pretty you’re getting, Mabel. You’ll make some lucky man a beautiful bride someday.”

“Mom, she’s _six_,” her mom said, with an annoyed huff of breath. “It’s a little too soon to think about marrying her off.”

“What? I was giving her a compliment!” She looked down at Mabel, patting her on the head like she was a cute pet, and added, “Besides, I remember your mommy having a puppy crush or two by the time she was your age, sweetie. Are there any little boys out there that you like?”

“I’m going to marry Mason!” Mabel announced just as proudly as ever.

Her grandma’s eyebrows went up, and she looked back up at Mabel’s mom. “Isn’t it time you start trying to break her of that?”

“She’s _six_,” her mom repeated again, stressing the word even more than before. “All she knows is that she loves her brother, not that you’re talking about a different type of love. Anyway…” She glanced down at Mabel, looking conflicted for a moment before her face smoothed into the expression of an adult knowing that nearby children wouldn’t have any clue what was going on if they talked over their head, “I’m just going to be happy if their relationship stays better than the stories I’ve heard about the last set of twins in the family. From what Simon’s said poor Stanford just _snapped_ when Stanley died without the two of them ever making up. He remembers the man being a brilliant scientist when he was young, and he just dropped all that to become as big a shyster as his twin was. I’ll just be happy to have them love each other, and when they hit puberty they’ll realize quickly enough that they want something other than their twin.”

* * *

She was nine when the girls' recess gossip turned to talking about the kind of man they wanted to marry. She listened as the others spun up stories about royalty, and athletes, and, in one case, EVE from WALL-E, agreeing that they all sounded like totally great super romantic picks. Then the talk looped around to her, and she gave the same answer that she always had. “I’m going to marry Mason!”

The conversation came to a halt, the other girls turning to her with matching expressions that she’d learned over the last few years meant ‘Mabel is so super weird.’ Katie, who sat one desk over from her, asked, “You mean, like, that lawyer on that show my grandma watches sometimes?”

“No,” Mabel said, baffled by the question. “Like, my Mason. That Mason!” she pointed at her brother where he was reading at the end of a slide, apparently unaware of the line of annoyed kids growing at the ladder on the other side, then waved wildly at him while she yelled, “Hi Mason!”

At her shout he seemed to finally snap out of his book-haze enough to notice the world around him, especially the hostile stares directed his way. He closed his book and stood up, another boy immediately shooting himself down through where he’d just been, and started wandering Mabel’s way.

But he stopped before reaching her, frowning as he took in the atmosphere around her and one of the other girls snapped, “Oh my god, you are so gross, Mabel! You can’t marry your brother, you brother-lover!” then she whirled and look at Mason, “You can’t marry your sister!”

“Huh?” he asked, backing a step away.

As he did the other girls took up the jeering cry of “Brother lover!” while they laughed like it was the smartest insult ever.

Mabel looked at him, her eyes large and wounded, and said, “We totally can, right Mason? One day I’ll marry you and you’ll marry me and we’ll be together forever.”

Mason looked from her to the mocking girls, his face growing redder and redder, before he finally burst out, “Of course not, Mabel! That would be weird! And gross! Weird and gross!”

The laughter around them grew louder and he at least looked a little ashamed though he made no effort to walk what he’d said back, even when Mabel’s eyes filled with tears. But before they could fall her face screwed up with anger and she stamped over to him. “Oh yeah? Well who would want to marry a big stupid _Dipper_ anyway?” she asked, shoving up the bangs he kept plastered down over his forehead even when the school refused to let him wear a hat. Ever since they’d moved across town and changed schools in the middle of third grade he’d successfully kept his birthmark hidden, keeping the nickname that had followed him since Kindergarten from sticking around. She felt a little guilty about being the one to spill it, but if he didn’t feel bad enough to take back what he’d said then she refused to as well. Instead she grabbed a nearby boy who was maybe a little cute, which maybe had something to do with his hair being the exact same color as Mason’s—as Dipper’s—and cooed, “A boy like Luke here is way better than a dippy dippy Dipper, right?”

Still, she couldn’t really feel pleased as she heard the taunts around her starting to shift subjects.

* * *

She was a few days away from turning thirteen, or maybe a few days past it, or maybe even stuck at an eternal twelve- time had gone strange and fuzzy ever since she found herself in her own personal world. She was perched behind Dippy Fresh on his skateboard, her eyes screwed shut at his urging. It shouldn’t have worked, except that _she_ was the one who decided how things worked and if she thought they’d keep moving smoothly crammed together on the board with her giving no help in the steering then they would.

The trip took awhile, though she’d learned enough of her land to realize they were probably just going in circles as it shifted around them; the actual space was smaller than the amount of things her imagination was able to pack into it. But just as her arms were getting so tired that she didn’t think she could cling onto him much longer they came to a stop.

“Dope job riding along, Mabel!” he exclaimed as he hopped off, taking both her hands in his and carefully turning her where he wanted. “We’ll get you grinding on the half-pipe in no time flat!” his voice went a little uncertain as he said that, Mabel’s own grasp of skateboarding terminology not really up to snuff, but he rallied with a firm “Boo-yah!”

“_Oh_ Dippy Fresh, I don’t think I’m _that_ great, but I guess you know best!”

“You know it, Girl!” he tugged her forward a little further then said, “Okay, open ‘em!”

He was smiling, was the first thing that hit her. It usually was. Dippy Fresh smiled widely and openly for her all the time, where Dipper did so more and more rarely the more he stressed over everything. It was only after she took that in that she noticed the building behind him; an ornate building made entirely out of white, daintily decorated, cake.

A wedding cake.

“W-what?” She stammered. “What are you…”

“C’mon, Mabel, let’s get hitched!” Dippy Fresh said, tugging her towards the cake-chapel. “It’ll be the bomb! You and me, together forever here, just like you always wanted!”

“…No…” she said weakly, planting herself where she stood.

“Bwuh?” he kept tugging at her, looking comically confused at her refusal.

“No!” She yanked her hands away, backing up. “That’s not what _you_ want. What Dipper wants! Dipper doesn’t want to marry me, he doesn’t want to think I want to marry him. You’re my Dipper here, and Dipper loves me, and he supports me, and he… he won’t ever want me. So you _can’t_.”

For just a second, unseen by Mabel from the tears hazing up her eyes as she denied herself what she’d always wanted, Dippy Fresh’s eyes flared red. The cake began to crumple from the inside, frosting pouring off it in waves. Then his expression smoothed, the landscape behind him settling into a sugary lake. “Hey hey hey, it’s all good! Ha, marriage, I must’ve been tripping right? We aren’t doing that, we’re gonna practice your skateboarding out here where there ain’t much going on! When we leave here you’ll have _moves_”

Mabel looked out at the one last delicate tower of cake still sticking out of the lake, before it too collapsed, half wanting to change her mind again. But if she let Dippy Fresh marry her she’d never be able to tell herself that he was still _basically_ Dipper again. And if he wasn't basically Dipper than her own precious little world couldn't be enough for her the way it was.

She wanted to marry Dipper. Marry Mason. She had ever since she’d found out what marriage meant.

But she wasn’t dumb enough anymore to think he’d ever really felt the same way.


End file.
